


Untouchable

by A_Candle_For_Sherlock



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, New love, Sick Character, Sickfic, learning trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 08:20:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7307323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Candle_For_Sherlock/pseuds/A_Candle_For_Sherlock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock used to act like he was above things like getting sick. John used to let him. But after Mary, and Magnussen, and a wedding and a fake suicide, everything's changed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Untouchable

**Author's Note:**

> Russian translation here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/11974713

They’ve changed so much. Both of them have. In the darkened kitchen, freezing rain ticks on the windowpane. John stands in his socks at the kitchen sink, stirring honey into Sherlock’s tea, and thinks about the way they used to be.

Sherlock rarely gets sick. John secretly believes he doesn’t slow down long enough to let himself. Before, if he actually started coming down with something, he’d barrel right on through the early signs–-wiping his running nose roughly as he sniffed at a corpse; blinking into a microscope at Bart’s through watery eyes; snorting with impatience when John pointed out his flushed face, spinning away from his hand as John reached to check his temperature. Trying to be untouchable. When whatever he had finally hit full force, it would knock him down completely. He’d be in bed for days, inert and miserable and mute with embarrassment at having been exposed as a fallible being capable of illness.

And John would let him be. Would busy himself typing up old cases for the blog, running to the shop, chatting up Mrs. Hudson, ignoring the silence from the room at the end of the hall. After a couple of tries early on, he’d learned not to offer company. When Sherlock finally emerged, dazed and rumpled and thrumming with boredom, John would just say, “Better?” and hide his satisfaction behind his newspaper.

That was before. This is now.

He’d woken slumped sideways into the sofa, his book fallen to the floor, hearing Sherlock coughing in the bedroom. He’d gotten up then without a thought, padded down the hall to tap on the door and ask if Sherlock wanted hot tea with lemon in it. The muted, “Yes, good,” he got in response hadn’t sounded joyful, exactly, but it was two in the morning and Sherlock was sleepless and hoarse with what was probably the beginnings of a nasty chest cold. Weeks after moving back in, John had known without question that he’d be lonely and wishing for tea.

They really are different now.

He pulls open the kitchen drawer where they keep medicine for minor things, painkillers and decongestants. Shakes out two pills from one bottle, one from another. Sherlock had disappeared straight into the bedroom after dinner. John had peeked and seen papers spread out all over the bed in there, a batch of cases with a tenuous connection Lestrade’s gang had overlooked for months, and Sherlock in a whirlwind of activity, pulling more old files and clippings out from the piles all over the floor, talking to himself.  John hadn’t expected him to emerge for hours–-had settled in for a quiet evening on the sofa with a paperback. Had Sherlock looked unwell then? Maybe a little paler than normal, a bit dark under the eyes. He’d been blowing his nose, but everyone had the sniffles, February in London being what it was.

Ah, well. He’d have a hard few days of it now, by the sound of that cough. But he’d curl up on the sofa, with his dressing gown and his laptop and his files, and he’d grumble and groan and John would take care of him, and Sherlock would let him.

Well. When had that happened?

After Mary, clearly. After everything had ended, and John had come home, and everything had begun.

But really the change had started before that, with Magnussen's sly, “Look how you care about John Watson,” and Sherlock saying quietly, “It helps me if I see myself through his eyes sometimes,” and enough drugs on the list to put him into an overdose as he tried to tell John goodbye, and Mycroft with that look on his face saying, “Look after him for me, John?” With the dawning understanding that he hadn't been cut out after his marriage because Sherlock didn't want him anymore, but because he wanted John so much.

And before that, change had crept in while they’d planned the ceremony, John utterly ignorant that he was slowly breaking Sherlock’s heart amidst dancing lessons and lilac dresses and the carefully admitted, “the two people I love most in the world,” that had struck Sherlock speechless--that Sherlock was terrified of losing him for good somewhere between the love song he'd written for them and the best man's speech that had made John cry. And before _that,_ change came with a dead man walking, a resurrection, a face he hadn't thought he'd see again; with tears of regret in a rigged Tube car, and the gritted-teeth bravery John dug up long enough to uncover his heart and tell him, “You were the best and the wisest man,” and the pure astonishment on Sherlock’s face.

He’d never really been untouchable.

After they’d learned what it was to try and live without each other, and then get each other back again, twice over–-after they’d both learned thoroughly well never to leave the most important things unsaid–-after all of that, they’d bloody well better have changed, John thinks, and takes the mug and the pills and makes his way through the dark to Sherlock.

He’s in bed, sitting up, his hair a wild tangle, shoulders slumped in his thin sleep shirt. Scientific and criminological miscellany lie scattered across the rug in the shadows. John picks his way through carefully to the bed. Sets the tea and the meds on the bedside table, lays a hand on Sherlock’s dry cheek. Sherlock rests the heated weight of it into John’s palm and yes, that's a fever.

“Long night?” John asks softly.

“Yes.”

“Solved any murders?”

“One or two.” He laughs, and coughs again, deeply. “Actually, no, I seem to have reached an impasse.”

“Hmmm.” John nudges him. “Budge over.”

He moves over and John nestles in beside the warmth of him, shoulder to shoulder. Settles the mug in Sherlock’s hands. Sherlock tries a swallow of tea; winces as the liquid hits his raw throat. After a moment he says, “You didn’t come to bed.”

“I know. I fell asleep out there. Rather be in here with you, though.” It’s easier to say these things when they’re side by side in the dark. It’s still new. John buries his hand in the soft curls, rubs the hot scalp gently. “Take your medicine.”

The tea slowly disappears as Sherlock takes small sips, and John can feel his body growing loose and heavy beside him. “Could you sleep now?”

“I think so. If you stay.” His voice is very quiet.

“As long as you need me.” He takes the cooling mug from Sherlock’s hands, sets it on the table. They slide down together under the covers.

“I always need you.”

John blinks. Sherlock's been coming out with these things when John’s not expecting it and dammit, now his throat’s gone tight. He swallows, turns over, reaches out to wrap his arm around Sherlock's long, tired body, but the pills haven’t killed the fever yet; he’s still too hot to hold. John settles for laying a hand on the soft inside of his arm.

“Then I’ll stay always.”


End file.
